r^i 



1 


E 675 


^ 


.G79 


a 


Copy 1 







MR. GREELEY'S RECORD, 



On the loth of May, 1865, ^^e day after 
Gen. Lee's surrender at Appomattox, Mr. 
Greeley wrote the following for The Daily 
Tribune, in which it duly appeared as lead- 
ing article the next morning: 

MAGNANIMITY IN TRIUMPH. 

We had hoped to print herewith the President's Proclamation of 
Amnesty and oblivion to the j^artisans of the baffled Rebellion, and we 
do not yet despair of receiving it before Ave go to press, though no por- 
tion of it has yet been received. We are apprised, however, by telegraph 
from Washington, that its tenor was publicly debated in that city yester- 
day, while our State Senate was agitated by a kindred discussion. We 
cannot shut our eyes to the fact that strenuous efforts are being made to 
swerve the President from the course to which his judgment and his feel- 
ing alike incline him, by stigmatizing it as involving infidelity to Principle 
or to Party. Others will be heard on this point, though we were to keep 
silence : we claim, therefore, our equal right to set forth our views, that 
they be acporded such weight as they shall be deemed to deserve. 

We hear men say — " Yes, forgive the great mass of those who have 
been misled into rebellion, but punish the leaders as they deserve." But 
who can accurately draw the line between leaders and followers in the 
premises ? By what test shall they be discriminated 1 Some of the arch- 
plotters of Disunion have never taken up arms in its support, nor have they 
held any important post in its civil service. Where is your touchstone of* 
leadership? We know none. 

Nor can we agree with those who would 2>unish the original j^lotters of 
Secession, yet spare their ultimate and scarcely willing converts. On the 
contrary, while wo would revive or inflame resentment against none of 
them, we feel far less antipathy to the original upholders of " the Resolu- 
tions of '98 " — to the disciples of Calhoun and McDuffie— to the Nullifiers 



4 ^ MB. geeeley's record. 

of 1832 and the " State Rights" men of 1850— than to the John Bells^ 
Humphrey Marshalls and Alex, IT. H. Stuarts, who were schooled in 
the National faith, and who, in becoming Disunionists and Rebels, trampled 
on the professions of a lifetime and spurned the logic wherewith they had 
so often unanswerably demonstrated that Secession was Treason. 
Whether they weakly yielded to the madness of the hour, hoping that 
they might ultimately " ride the whirlwind and direct the storm " to some 
ill-defined but beneficent purpose, or surrendered their judgment and their 
loyalty to that imposture of " State Sovereignty " which they had always 
held in just contempt, or were driven by sheer cowardice and fear of 
bodily violence into a course condemned by all their better impulses, we 
protest against any discrimination Avhereby this class shall be screened or 
favored. We consider Jefferson Davis this day a less culpable traitor 
than John Bell. 

• But we cannot believe it wise or well to take the life of any man who 
shall have submitted to the National authority. The execution of even 
one such would be felt as a personal stigma by every one who had ever 
aided the Rebel cause. Each would say to himself, " I am as culpable 
as he ; we differ only in that I am deemed of comparatively little conse- 
quence." A single Confederate led out to execution would be evermore 
enshrined in a million hearts as a conspicuous hero and martyr. We 
cannot realize that it would be wholesome or safe — we are sure it would 
not be magnanimous — to give the overpowered disloyalty of the South 
such a shrine. Would the throne of the House of Hanover stand more 
firmly had Charles Edward been caught and executed after Culloden ? 
Is Austrian domination in Hungary the more stable to-day for the hang- 
ing of Nagy Sandor and his twelve compatriot Generals after the surren- 
der of Vilagos ? 

We plead against passions certain at this moment to be fierce and 
intolerant ; but on our side are the Ages and the voice of History. We 
plead for a restoration of the Union, against a policy which would afford 
a momentary gratification at the cost of years of perilous hate and 
bitterness. 

We have borne for a quarter of a century the unjust imputation of 
hating the South, when we hated and sought to subvert only Slavery, the 
scourge alike of South and North, and the sole cause of discord between 
them. Wc have done what we could — of course, not always wisely — to 
baffle, to circumscribe, and ultimately to overthrow, the Slave Power. 
At length, through a succession of events which no human being could 
have devised or foreseen, the end which we sincerely hoped but hardly 
expected to see, is plainly before us. American Slavery is visibly in the 
agonies of dissolution ; if we live a year longer, we shall almost certainly 
see it laid in the grave ; and, Avhenever abolished here, its expulsion from 
the last rood of Christendom that it now curses cannot he postponed five 



EEOONSTEUOTION. O 

years. Let us take caie that no vindictive impulse shall be suffered to 
imperil this glorious consummation. 

Unquestionably, there are men in the South who have richly deserved 
condign punishment. Whoever is responsible for the butchery of our 
Black soldiers vanquished in fight, or the still more atrocious murder of 
captives by wanton exposure ani privation in prison-camps, stands in 
this category. But the immediate issue concerns not the dispensation of 
justice to individuals but the pacification of a vast republic. He who 
fancies that all the exhibitions of cruelty or perfidy have been the work 
of Rebels has but a superficial knowledge of our current history. 

Those who invoke military execution for the vanquished, or even for 
their leaders, we suspect, will not generally be found among the few who 
have long been exposed to unjust odium as haters of the South, because 
they abhorred Slavery. And, as to the long oppressed and degraded 
Blacks, so lately the slaves, destined still to be the neighbors, and we 
trust at no distant day the fellow-citizens, of the Southern "Whites, we are 
sure their voice, could it be authentically uttered, would ring out 
decidedly, sonorously, on the side of Clemency — of Humanity. 



Mr. Greeley also wrote on that loth day 
of April, 1865, ^^^ following, which succeed- 
ed the foregoing in next morning's Tribune : 

EEOONSTRUOTION. 

One of the most doleful prognostics to which our great struggle has 
tempted the enemies of the Republic affirmed the impossibility of recon- 
ciling the Southern People to the Union they had renounced, defied, and 
would fain have subverted. " What will you do with your Poland after you 
shall have conquered it?" triumphantly asked a Briton of a Unionist, not 
anticipating the obvious answer — " We will liberate the Poles." Nothing 
but Universal Freedom was needed to render the South preponderantly 
loyal when Secession held her dumb and rigid in its embrace ; nothing 
more was needed to render even South Carolina a decidedly Union State. 
To make any State disloyal, you had to count its aristocracy everything, 
its working classes nothing; and, though this was the political status 
actually existing at the outbreak of the Rebellion, it was an artificial stattis, 
which yielded readily to the rude shock of war. From the hour wherein 
the President issued his first Proclamation of Freedom, a preponderance 
of the numbers, the sinews, and the prayers of the South, ardently adhered 
to the side of the Union, and only liberty of speech and act were required 
to render that preponderance effective. To recognize the humanity auu 



6 MR. Greeley's record. 

vindicate the personal rights of all the Southern people was to overthrow 
the Rebellion and restore the Union. And this is the essence of " recon- 
struction." 

Hence, we deprecated the adoption by Congress of any elaborate or 
even definite project of State restoration ; hence we confidently look for 
a speedy and thorough reestablishment of Peace and return to the ways 
of Industry and Thrift under the segis of the Union. The threat of pro- 
tracting the war by guerilla bands hiding in swamps and mountain fast- 
nesses is idle. It might be possible for the Government to impel a 
fi-enzied handful to this resort by wholesale confiscation and cruel rigor ; 
but no such madness is possible. We have had a great Civil War, 
wherein blood has flowed like water and property been destroyed as 
though it were dross ; we have fought it out like men ; and now we will 
all set to work to repair its ravages as rapidly and thoroughly as we can. 
All being now free, and most of us poor, we shall all set to work to rebuild 
our burned houses, replant and till our wasted fields, and repair our dis- 
mantled canals, railroads, &;c., at the earliest possible day, thus securing 
work to the idle, bread to the hungry, and opening vistas to comfort and 
independence for all. Our lamented dead cannot be restored ; but the 
wounded will be nursed, the cripples cared for, with grateful tenderness, 
while we multiply the inventions and labor-saving machinery whereby 
the ravages and losses of War shall be speedily effaced or counter-bal- 
anced. We have a great Public Debt; but a moderate tax on the per- 
nicious luxuries consumed among us will pay its interest and soon begin 
the reduction of its amount ; while bounteous crops of Grain, Meat, Cot- 
ton, &c., with large and steadily increasing drafts upon our mountains 
and glens of precious ore, will combine to pay off our foreign creditors 
and secure a balance of trade in our favor. Union — Peace — Liberty — 
with these mscribed in light on our banner, we shall move firmly, proudly 
on to the fulfilment of our country's magnificent destiny. May she be 
henceforth without exception a terror to oppressors and evil-doers, and a 
beacon of hope and cheer to the enslaved and down-trodden throughout 
the habitable globe ! 

Articles kindred in spirit to the forego- 
ing were written by him throughout the 
ensuing months, when the assassination of 
Mr. Lincoln had wrought the North into 
a frenzy of grief and wrath which would 
hardly tolerate suggestions of forbearance and 
mercy. 



THE TKUE BASES OF EECONSTKUCTION. 7 

After the series of signal Republican 
triumphs in the State Elections of 1866 had 
culminated in the re-election of Gov. Fen- 
ton, by an increased majority, with a Legisla- 
ture which was understood to favor Mr. Gree- 
ley's election to the U. S. Senate, he dashed the 
hopes of his friends by writing and publishing 
in The Tribune of Nov. 27th, the following: 

THE TEUE BASES OF EECONSTEUOTION. 

About to start for some weeks' sojourn in the West, whence I can- 
not readily and constantly confer with the general public, I wish to leave 
my contribution to the general mass of suggestion and criticism touching 
the true bases of National restoration and concord so plainly set forth 
that it cannot be misquoted nor misapprehended. 

That I have long held the main foundations of a genuine, enduring 
resettlement of our disturbed and upturned National structure to be 
UNrvERSAL Amnesty and Impartial Suffrage, must be tolerably well 
known. It only remains to be said that I commend them not as recip- 
rocal concessions, but as common benefits. I trust our great differences 
are to be composed and ended by no grudging, higgling compromise — no 
pea-nut dicker. It is essential to the North that the South should be 
thoroughly tranquilized and reassured ; it is essential to the South that 
her principal body of Agricultural Laborei-s — her peasant cultivators — 
should live azid labor in contentment based on perfect trust that their 
rights of person and property — their earnings and their homes — are as 
secure and inviolate as those of the proudest magnate in the land. There 
is no Northern, no Southern interest in the premises, but a common in- 
terest of the Avhole American people. 

I am for Universal Amnesty — so far as immunity from fear of pun- 
ishment or confiscation is concerned — even though Impartial Suffrage 
should for the present be resisted and defeated. I did think it desirable 
that Jefferson Davis should be arraigned and. tried for treason ; and it 
still seems to me that this might properly have been done many months 
ago. But it was not done then ; and now I believe it would result in 
far more evil than good. It would rekindle passions that have nearly 
burned out or been hushed to sleep ; it would fearfully convulse and 
agitate the South ; it would arrest the progress of reconciliation and 
kindly feeling there ; it Avould cost a large sum directly, and a far larger 



8 MR. Greeley's eecoeb. 

indii-ectly; and — unless the jury ^ve^e scandalously packed — it would 
result in a non-agreement or no verdict. I can imagine no good end to 
be subserved by such a trial, and — holding Davis neither better nor worse 
than thousands of others — would have him treated as they are. 

I hope to see Impartial Suffrage established by very general consent. 
Many will favor it because they hold it eminently wise and just ; others 
because they are tired of contention about negroes, and wish to put an 
end to it. And the one simple, obvious mode of taking the negro out 
of politics is just to treat him as a man. He will cease to be an object 
of special interest or championship from the hour that the law dis- 
ref^ards the immaterial circumstance of his color, and treats him only as 
a human being. 

I trust the States will generally accord to Blacks the common rights 
of Manhood, irrespective of the Nation and of each other ; and I trust 
they will agree to place those rights under the protection of the Federal 
Constitution. This may not, in one sense, be necessary ; yet it is best 
to leave no " loop to hang a doubt upon." The whole country needs 
absolute peace and rest. I am very willing that each State should im- 
pose a moderate poll-tax on every citizen, and allow no one to vote who 
shall not have seasonably paid this tax. I hold that lunatics, idiots, 
criminals, vagrants, and public paupers, have no natural right to vote, 
and that they ought not to be enfranchised. If there be negroes— as I 
presume there are— who choose to prowl over the country, begging and 
stealing, I think these should not be allowed to vote. But every honest, 
diligent, industrious, useful citizen, however lowly, ought to be a voter ; 
and that State is weakened and imperiled which excludes any such from 
her electoral body. 

I dislike the suggestion of an " intelligence " basis for suffrage. Let 
us not be deluded by false analogies and vague abstractions. In a State 
where each child grows up within sight of free school-houses wherein he is 
more than welcome to be a pupil, it is perfectly reasonable to prescribe that 
those only who can read may vote. Where half the people have not only 
been denied all public facilities for education, but have grown up under 
laws which made teaching them a crime, the case is very different. Es- 
tablish common schools in the South, and you may fairly prescribe that 
no one shall vote ofUr 1876 who does not know how to read. But do 
not put out a man's eyes and then punish him for blindness. 

It would be morally impossible to enforce fairly and uniformly an 
intelligence test in the South. Just think of Mayor Monroe, with his 
chief of police and first marshal, sitting as a board on the eve of an ex- 
citing election to determine how many and which of the Blacks of New- 
Orlelns were so literary as they should be to make them voters ! Fancy 
the Copperheads of Southern Maryland passing on the literary pretensions 
of their late slaves, from whom they feared defeat in an exciting political 



TKE TRUE BASES OF BEOONSTEUCTION. 9 

contest ! The bare attempt to enforce such a test at the South will mani- 
festly inflame and distract that entire region. I trust it will be forborne. 

I commend Impartial Suffrage as required by the true interest of all 
concerned ; yet I cannot admit that it is a matter in which the North has 
no rightful concern. The Blacks are a portion not merely of the Southern 
but of the American People. They played an important and beneficent 
part in our great Civil War. We cannot ignore the obligations springing 
from our necessity and their loyalty. I hold that honor and good faith 
absolutely constrain those who triumphed in that struggle to tal^e care 
that their humble supporters and backers shall not be made to suffer for 
taking the side of the Union. To say now, in view of the recent past, 
" Let the Southern negroes have such rights only as their White (late 
Rebel) fellow-citizens shall see fit to accord them," would be ingratitude 
and perfidy such as might well invoke the lightnings of heaven. No 
matter at what cost, we of the North must take care that the Southern 
Blacks are not lefl at the mercy of that diabolic spirit which manifested 
itself through the late massacres of Memphis and New-Orleans. 

" But there is the Federal Constitution in your way," 1 hear objected. 

Perhaps I do not comprehend the force of this objection. Let me 
illustrate my view of it by a familiar example. Suppose Gen. Grant, 
when he first approached the boundary of Tennessee — but no, let us sup- 
pose that Gen. Lee, when in 1863 he reached the southern boundary of 
Pennsylvania, had found his way barred by a pompous, puffy personage,, 
who accosted him as follows : " Sir, I give you notice that this is the 
' sacred soil ' of Pennsylvania ; I am one of her magistrates, and, in her 
name and authority, and in virtue of that Federal Constitution which you 
have sworn to obey, I command you to turn back !" — it is just possible 
that the General would have ordered the justice to get out of the way, but 
more probable that he would have simply kept on without vouchsafing 
the judicial magnate a word. 

We have been engaged in a fierce, desperate, protracted struggle for 
the very existence of the Republic, whereof the Constitution is but an 
incident. ( I know there were those nominally on our side who said they 
fought for the Constitution ; but I never heard of their hurting anybody.) 
In the progress of that struggle, it became necessary to call the Blacks to 
the rescue of the imperiled Nation. Had we made them no promises 
whatever, our obligations resulting from our peril and their services in 
averting it would not have been essentially lessened. Had we been 
worsted, they must have shared our misfortune, and gone under the feet of 
the triumphant Rebels. Had we ended the struggle by treaty or compact, 
they must have been governed by the terms of that compact. But we were 
not worsted ; we did not compromise nor end the war by treaty ; we were 
entirely and absolutely triumphant ; and I hold it a moral obligation thence 
resulting that we shall guarantee and secure their absolute, j)erfect fceo- 



XO MR. GREELEY S RECORD. 

dom. To prove unfaithful to this obligation is to bury ourselves in per- 
fidy and enduring shame. And this responsibility, springing directly from 
the National rescue from ruin, I hold far before and above the letter of 
the Constitution. 

The soundness and urgency of this view would not have been so pal- 
pable had the Rebels, after the utter collapse ami disappearance of their 
Confederacy, evinced a grain of common sense. Had they so acted that 
their friends might have plausibly argued that the Blacks were safe in 
their hands, we might have guessed, or trusted, or hoped, that the most 
vital rights of the Freedmen would be respected and shielded by State 
action ; and thereupon gone to sleep. But the last shots of the war had 
barely ceased to echo when Southern legislatures, assembled by Mr. 
Johnson's Provisional Governors, began to concoct and enact laws bear- 
ino- exclusively on the Freedmen which would have disgraced the worst 
days of Egyptian or of Algerine despotism. For instance : no reasonable 
person ever objected, while Slavery existed, to laws placing the Blacks 
in Slave States under police surveillance, and forbidding them to keep or 
bear arms ; but such acts became absurdly tyrannical from the moment 
wherein Slavery disappeared ; and the wrenching of their arms by Rebels 
from honorably discharged Union soldiers, under color of State authority, 
solely .because the Unionists were Blacks, was a very cowardly mode of 
renewing the war of Rebellion. So of all acts revived or re-enacted which 
shut Blacks out of the witness-box in cases where only Whites were 
parties, or inflicted on them any kind of disability which was at the same 
time an indignity. This kind of legislation (see McPherson's Manual) 
was common to all the Rebel States, though that of Mississippi was prob- 
ably the worst. I rejoice that South Carolina has had the good sense to 
repeal her share of it, and I hail her action in this respect as greatly con- 
ducive to an early restoration of the Union. But it is proved unsafe to 
trust to local authority and opinion, which may be right to-day and wrong 
to-morrow : we must place the essential rights of every American citizen 
under the express guardianship of the Federal Constitution. That will 
be the end of controversy; until then, even unsuccessful attempts to 
abridge them will prove a grave and general calamity. 

I have said that I favor both Universal Amnesty and Impartial Suf- 
frage on their respective merits, each without regard to the other. I hold 
tbat the North is bound to insist on Manhood Suffrage— not in the- South 
only, but in every State and Territory — because of the service required 
of and rendered by the Blacks in putting down the Rebellion — that it 
would be perfidy and baseness, in view of all the facts, 7iot to insist on 
this. I hold the South bound to accord Suff'rage to the Blacks, as an im- 
portant and useful, though humble, portion of her people, whom it is her 
interest as well as her duty to conciliate and satisfy, even though the 
North did not desire it. There is no conflict between the interests and 
duties of the North on one side and the South on the other— what is best 



THE TRUE BASES OF REOONSTEUCTION. 11 

for each, or either, is best for both — the only collision is between their re- 
spective resentments and prejudices. The North wants to keep at least 
the leading Rebels under ban indefinitely ; the South — that is, a majority 
of the dominant caste at the South — wants to keep the negroes under foot 
- — despised, powerless, and often abused by the White ruffians, 
whose crimes the better class disavow, but neither prevent nor punish. 
The loyal North has demonstrated her ability to keep the Rebels out of 
Congress ; the Rebel South has likewise proved her power to prevent in- 
definitely the due ratification of the Constitutional Amendment. This 
dead-lock affords to those whom T must consider the more generous and 
far-seeing minds of either section, an opportunity which, once lost, may 
never return. Even though the South were able to force her leaders into 
Congress, they could not hope for full restoration to power and public 
favor ; even though the North were able to force Impartial Suffrage on 
the South, it would prove of little value while resisted by a strong 
maj-ority of the dominant caste there. But let North and South strike 
hands on the basis of Universal Amnesty with Impartial Suffrage, and the 
resulting peace will be perfect, all-embracing and enduring. Each section 
will gain everything and lose really nothing. 

As to how the Blacks will vote if enfranchised, I have not inquired, 
and do not care to know. That they will not vote for the reestablishment 
of Slavery, nor for their own disfranchisement, nor to exalt to power those 
who burn their school-houses and mob their camp-meetings, I take to be 
self-evident. They may make some mistakes at first ; but experience will 
tend steadily to their diminution and correction. I do not concur with 
the careful mother who insisted that her son must be kept out of the water 
till he should have learned to swim. And 1 feel confident that Blacks, 
like other men, will vote first to secure their own rights, then to promote 
the welfare of their country. -.^ 

If the South shall insist on her abstract right to hold the Blacks as a 
subject race, the North will doubtless insist on the indefinite disfranchise- 
ment of all the prominent Rebels, and matters will thus go on as they 
have gone for the last year. I must still cherish my opinion that thife is 
unwise ; but I shall stand with my own people, while awaiting the calmer 
and wiser view that I am confident must ultimately prevail. The disin- 
terested will say, ''Let the Rebels remain under the ban so long as they 
insist on keeping the Blacks there " — and they will say so with ample 
reason. If the adjustment I urge should ultimately fail, and, in the muta- 
tions of party ascendancy, the Rebels should be let up and the Blacks be 
kept down, I shall regret it as much for the sake of the South as of the 
North ; and I shall feel that the blame does not all attach to the South. 
And, whatever the immediate issue, I shall bate no jot of heart or hope 
that at last — and at no very distant day — our people will be thoroughly 
harmonized and united on the basis of Impartial and Universal Freedom. 

H. G. 



12 ME. GEEELEY^S EECOED. 

In the spirit of the foregoing (which 
made Roscoe Conkling a U. S. Senator), Mr. 
Greeley, on learning that his doing so was 
essential, repaired, in May following, to Vir- 
ginia, and became surety for Jefferson Davis, 
in order that he might be liberated on bail. 
On his return to New York, he received a 
summons from Hon, John Jay, President of 
the Union League Club, to appear before said 
Club, and there respond to an arraignment of 
his conduct aforesaid, over the signature of 
thirty-odd members of that Club. To this 
citation, Mr. Greeley responded as follows : 

BY THESE PEESENTS, GEEETING : 

To Messrs. Geo. W. Blunt, John A. Kennedy, John O. Stone, Stephen 
Hyatt, and 30 others, members of (he Union League Club : 

Gentlemen : I was favored, on the 16th inst., by an official note from 
our ever-courteous President, John Jay, notifying me that a requisition 
had been presented to him for '• a special meeting of the Club, at an early 
" day, for the purpose of taking into consideration the conduct of Horace 
" Greeley, a member of the Club, who has become a bondsman for Jef- 
" f Ts in Davis, late chief officer of the Rebel Government." Mr. Jay 
continues : 

"As I have reason to believe that the signers, or some of them, dis- 
approve of the conduct which they propose the Club shall consider, it is 
clearly due, both to the Club and to yourself, that ynu shouhJ have the 
opportunity of being lieard on the subject : I beg, therefore,, to ask on 
what evening it will be convenient for you that I call the meeting," 
&c., dsc. 

In my prompt reply, I requested the President to give you reasonable 
time for reflection, but assured him that /wanted none; since I should 
not attend the meeting, nor ask any friend to do so, and oaould make no 
defense, nor offer aught in the way of self-vindication. I am sure my 
friends in the Club will not construe this as implying disrespect ; but it 
is not my habit to take part in any discussion which may arise among 



LETTER TO THE TJISTION LEAGUE CLUB. 13 

other gentlemen as to my fitness to enjoy their society. That is their 
affair altogether, and to them I leave it. 

The single point whereon I have any occasion or wish to address you 
is your virtual implication that there is something novel, unexpected, 
astounding, in my conduct in the matter suggested by you as the basis 
of your action. I choose not to rest under this assumption, but to prove 
.that you, being persons of ordinary intelligence, must know better. On 
this point, I cite you to a scrutiny of the record : 

The surrender of Gen. Lee was made known in this city at 11, p. m. 
of Sunday, April 9th, 1865, and fitly announced in The Tribune of next 
morning, April 10th. On that very day, T wrote, and next morning 
printed in these columns, a leader entitled " Magnanimity in Triumph," 
wherein I said : 

" We hear men say : — ' Yes, forgive the great mass of those who have 
been misled into rebellion, but punish the leaders as they deserve.' But 
who can accurately draw the line between leaders and followers in the 
premises? By what test shall they be discriminated ? * * * Where 
is your touchstone of leadership 1 We know of none. 

" Nor can we agree with those who would punish the original plotters 
of Secession, yet spare their ultimate and scarcely willing converts. On 
the contrary, while we would revive or inflame resentment against none 
of them, we feel far less antipathy to the original upholders of ' the i^esolu- 
tions of'98' — to the disciples of Calhoun and McDuffie — to the Nullifiers of 
1833, and the 'State Rights' men of 1850— than to the John Bells, 
Humphrey Marshalls, aiid Alex. H. H. Stuarts, who were schooled in 
the National faith, and who, in becoming Disunionists and Rebels, 
trampled on the professions of a life- time, and spurned the logic where- 
with they had so often unanswerably demonstrated that Secession was 
treason. * * - * * * We consider Jefferson Davis this day a less 
culpable traitor than John Bell. 

" But we cannot believe it wise or well to take the life of any man 
who shall have submitted to the National authority. The execution of 
even one such would be felt as a personal stigma by every one who had 
ever aided the Rebel cause. Each would say to himself, ' I am as culpa- 
ble as he ; we differ only in that I am deemed of comparatively little con- 
sequence.' A single Confederate led out to execution would be evermore 
enshrined in a million hearts as a conspicuous hero and martyr. We 
cannot realize that it would be wholesome or safe — we are sure it would 
not be magnanimous — to give the overpowered disloyalty of the South 
such a shrine. Would the throne of the House of Hanover stand more 
firmly had Charles Edward been caught and executed after Culloden? 
Is Austrian domination in Hungary more stable to-day for the hanging of 
Nagy Sandor and his twelve compatriots after the surrender of Vilagos? 

" We plead against passions certain to be at this moment fierce and 
intolerant; but on our side are the Ages and the voice of History. We 
plead for a restoration of the Union, against a policy which would afford 
a momentary gratification at the cost of years of perilous hate and bitter- 
ness *********** 

'* Those who invoke Military execution for the vanquished, or even for 
their leaders, we suspect will not generally be found among the iev^ who 



14 MR, GEEELEY^S RECORD. 

have long been exposed to unjust odium as haters of the South, because they 
abhored Slavery. And, as to the long oppressed and degraded Blacks — 
so lately the slaves, destined still to be the neighbors, and (we trust), at 
no distant day, the fellow-citizens, of the Southern Whites — we are sure 
that their voice, could it be authentically uttered, would ring out 
decidedly, sonorously, on the side of Clemency — of Humanity." 

On the next day I had some more in this spirit, and on the 13th an 
elaborate leader, entitled " Peace — Punishment," in the course of which 
I said : 

" The New York Times, doing injustice to its own sagacity in a char- 
acteristic attempt to sail between wind and water, says :_ ' Let us hang 
Jeff. Davis and spare the fest.' * * * We do not "concur in the 
advice. Davis did not devise nor instigate the Rebellion ; on the con- 
trary, he was one of the latest and most reluctant of the notables of the 
Cotton States to renounce definitively the Union. His prominence is 
purely official and representative : the only reason for hanging him is 
that you therein condemn and stigmatize more persons than in hanging 
any one else. There is not an ex-Rebel in the world — no matter how 
penitent — who will not have unpleasant sensations about the neck on the 
day when the Confederate President is to hang. And to what good end ? 

" We insist that this matter must not be regarded in any narrow 
aspect. We are most anxious to secure the assent of the South to 
Emancipation ; not that assent which the condemned gives to being hung, 
when he shakes hands with his jailer and thanks him for past acts of kind- 
ness ; but that hearty assent which can only be won by magnanimity. 
Perhaps the Rebels, as a body, would have given, even one year ago, as 
large and as hearty a vote for hanging the writer of this article as any 
other man living ; hence, it more especially seems to , him important to 
prove that the Civilization based on Free Labor is of a higher and humaner 
type than that based on Slavery. We cannot realize that the gratification 
to enure to our friends from the hanging of any one man, or fifty men, 
should be allowed to outweigh this consideration." 

On the following day I wrote again : 
* * * * « -^e entreat the President promptly to do and dare in 
the cause of magnanimity. The Southern mind is now open to kindness, 
and may be magnetically affected by -tnerosity. Let assurance at once 
be given that there is to be a General Amnesty and no general Confisca- 
tion. This is none the less the dictate of wisdom, because it is also the 
dictate of mercy. What we ask is, that the President say in effect, 
' Slavery having, through rebellion, committed suicide, let the North and 
the South unite to bury the carcass, and then clasp hands across the 
grave." 

— The evening of that day witnessed that most appalling calamity, the 
murder of President Lincoln, which seemed in an instant to curdle all 
the milk of human kindness in Twenty Millions of American breasts. At 
once, insidious efforts were set on foot to turn the fury thus engendered 
against me, because of my pertinacious advocacy of mercy to the van^ 
quished. Chancing to enter our club-house the next (Saturday) evening, 
I received a full broadside of your scowls, ere we listened to a clerical 



LETTER TO THE FlSTfON LEAGUE CLUB. 15 

harangue intended to prove that Mr. Lincoln had been Providentially re- 
moved because of his notorious leanings towards clemency, in order to 
make way for a successor who would give the Eebels a fiill measure of 
stern justice. I was soon made to comprehend that I had no sympathi- 
sers — or none who dared seem such — in your crowded assemblage. And 
some maladroit admirer having, a few days afterward, made the Club a 
present of my portrait, its bare reception was resisted in a speech from 
the Chair by your then President — a speech whose vigorous invective 
was justified solely by Biy pleadings for lenity to the Rebels. 

At once, a concerted howl of denunciation and rage was sent up from 
every side against me by the little creatures whom God, for some inscrut- 
able purpose, permits to edit a majority of our minor journals, echoed by 
a yell of " Stop my paper !" from thousands of imperfectly instructed 
readers of The Tribune. One impudent puppy wrote me to answer 
categorically whether I was or was not in favor of hanging Jeff. Davis, 
adding that I must stop his paper if I were not ! Scores volunteered 
assurances that I was defying public opinion — that most of my readers 
were against me — as if I could be induced to write what they wished said 
rather than what they needed to be told. I never be-ore realised so 
vividly the baseness of the Editorial vocation according to the vulgar 
conception of it. The din raised about my ears now is noth^g to that I 
then endured and despised. I am humiliated by the reflection that it is 
(or was) in the power of such insects to annoy me, even by pretending to 
discover with surprise something that I have for years been publicly, em- 
phatically proclaiming. 

— I must hurry over much that deserves a paragraph, to call your 
attention distinctly to occurrences in November last. Upon the Repub- 
licans having, by desperate effort, handsomely carried our State against a 
formidable-looking combination of recent and venomous apostates with 
our natural adversaries, a cry arose from several quarters that I ought to 
be chosen U. S. Senator, At once, kind, discreet friends swarmed about 
me, whispering " Only keep still about Universal Amnesty, and your elec- 
tion is certain. Just be quiet a few weeks, and you can say what you 
please thereafter. You have no occasion to speak now." I slept on the 
well-meant suggestion, and deliberately concluded that I could not, in 
justice to myself, defer to it. I could not purchase office by even passive, 
negative dissimulation. No man should be enabled to say to me, in 
truth, "If I had supposed you would persist in your rejected, condemned 
Amnesty hobby, I would not have given you my vote." So I wrote and 
published, on the 27th of that month, my manifesto, entitled " The True 
Bases of Reconstruction," wherein, repelling the idea that I proposed a 
dicker with the ex-Rebels, I explicitly said : 

" I am for Universal Amnesty — so far as immunity from fear of pun- 
ishment or confiscation is concerned — even though Impartial Suffrage 



16 MiJ. geeel£y's recoed. 

should, for the present, be defeated. I did think it desirable that Jeffer- 
son Davis should be arraigned and tried for treason ; and it still seems to 
me that this might properly have been done many months ago. But it 
was not done then ; and now I believe it would result in far more evil 
than good. It would rekindle passions that have nearly burned out or 
been hushed to sleep; it would fearfully convulse and agitate the South ; it 
would arrest the progress of reconciliation and kindly feeling there ; it 
would cost a large sum directly and a far larger indirectly ; and, unless 
the jury were scandalously packed — it would result in a non-agreement 
or no verdict. I can imagine no good end to be subserved by such a trial ; 
and — holding Davis neither better nor worse than several others — would 
have him treated as they are." 

Is it conceivable that men who can read, and who were made aware 
of this declaration — for most of you were present and shouted approval 
of Mr. Fessenden's condemnation of my views at the Club, two or three 
evenino-s thereafter — can now pretend that my aiding to have Davis bailed 
is something novel and unexpected 1 

— Gentlemen, I shall not attend your meeting this evening. I have 
an engagement out of town, and shall keep it. I do not recognize you as 
capable of judging, or even fully apprehending me. You evidently regard 
me as a weak sentimentalist, misled by a maudlin philanthropy. Larraign 
you as narrow-minded blockheads, who would like to be useful to a great 
and good cause, but don't know how. Your attempt to base a great, en- 
during party on the hate and wrath necessarily engendered by a bloody 
Civil War, is as though you should plant a colony on an iceberg which 
had somehow drifted into a tropical ocean. I tell you here that, out of a 
life earnestly devoted to the good of human kind, your children will 
select my going to Richmond and signing that ball-bond as the wisest act, 
and will feel that it did more for Freedom and Humanity than all of you 
were competent to do, though you had lived to the age of Methusaleh. 

I ask nothing of you, then, but that ypu proceed to your end by a 
direct, frank, manly way. Don't sidle off into a mild resolution of 
censure, but move the expulsion which you purposed, and which I deserve, 
if I deserve any reproach whatever. All I care for is, that you make this 
a square, stand-up fight, and record your judgment by Yeas and Nays. 
I care not how few vote with me, nor how many vote against me ; for I 
know that the latter will repent it in dust and ashes before three years 
have passed. Understand, once for all, that I dare you and defy you, and 
that I propose to fight it out on the line that I have held from the day or 
Lee's surrender. So long as any man was seeking to overthrow our 
Government, he was my enemy ; from the hour in which he laid down 
his arms, he was my formerly erring countryman. So long as any is at 
heart opposed to the National unity, the Federal authority, or to that 
assertion of the Equal Rights of all Men which has become practically 
identified with Loyalty and Nationality, I shall do my best to deprive him 



AS TO THEEVENG CARPET-BAGGERS. 17 

of power ; but, whenever he ceases to be thus, I demand his restoration 
to all the privileges of American citizenship. I give you fair notice that 
I shall urge the reenfranchisement of those now proscribed for Rebellion 
so soon as I shall feel confident that this course is consistent with the free- 
dom of the Blacks and the unity of the Republic, and that I shall demand 
a recall of all now in exile only for participating in the Rebellion^ when- 
ever the country shall have been so thoroughly pacified that its safety will 
not thereby be endangered. And so, gentlemen, hoping that you will 
henceforth comprehend me somewhat better than you have done, I remain, 
Yours, Horace Greeley. 

miv York, May 23, 1867. 



Mr. Greeley traversed the South- Western 
States in May, 1871, in obedience to an invi- 
tation to speak at the Texas State Fair, Hous- 
ton, May 2 2d. On his return to this City, 
he was publicly welcomed (June 10) by a 
large concourse of his friends, and, in reply 
to an address by E. L. Fancher, Esq., spoke 
at length on the condition of the South. The 
following is the more pertinent portion of 
his remarks on that occasion : — 

EXTRACT FEOM Mil. GREELEY'S SPEECH. 

Fellow-citizens, the Ku-Klux are no myth, although they shroud 
themselves in darkness. They are no flitting ghosts ; they are a baneful 
reality. They have paralyzed the Right of Suffrage in many counties 
throughout the South, and have carried States that they ought not to 
have carried ; but they are not the only enemies to Republican ascend- 
ancy in the South. 

There is another influence equally pernicious with theirs, and a great 
deal more detrimental to the fame and character of the Republican 
party. I allude to what are known as the *' thieving carpet-baggers." 
[Applause.] Fellow-citizens, do not mistake me. All the Northern 
men in the South are not thieves. The larger part of them are honest 
and good men, some of whom stay there at the peril of their lives, be^ 
cause they believe it their duty. Next to the noble and true women 
who have gone down South to teach Black children how to read — nobler 
2 



18 MR. GREELEY S RECORD. 

there are not on the earth than these, whom a stupid, malignant, dilap- 
idated aristocracy often sees fit to crowd into negro hovels to live, not 
allowing them to enter any White society because they are teaching 
negro children — next to these, who rank as the noblest women in the 
South, are the honest and worthy Northern men, who, in the face of 
social proscription and general obloquy and scorn, stand firmly by the 
Republican cause. 

There was a most urgent and special necessity for rigid economy in 
the reconstructed States of the South, even aside from their impoverislv 
ment by war and the disruption of their industry by peace. For des- 
potic government has this advantage over free, that its agencies are apt 
to be simple and cheap. The old Slave governments of the South were 
thoroughly aristocratic, and they were very rarely corrupt or prodigal. 
The planters paid most of the taxes ; they decided who should be legis- 
lators ; and they did not abide jobbers. Legislative stealing was almost 
an unknown art among them. Then they had no public support of the 
poor; each subsisted, after a fashion, his own used-up slaves. The Poor 
Whites lived or died as they might ; and, except for the Whites in two 
or three great cities, there were no public schools : and this made 
government cheap and taxes light. 

With Emancipation came a great change. There was an urgent 
demand for free schools, and the school-houses had to be built, to begin 
with ; for the public support of paupers. White and Black, and there 
were no alms-houses ; and so with many public institutions. Just when 
the people were poorest, they were required to bear the heaviest public 
expenses^ though only accustomed to the lightest. Dissatisfaction and 
complaint were inevitable ; but every effort should have been made, 
every nerve strained, to mitigate them by rigorous economy. I regret 
to say that the reverse was the course pursued in some States, by men 
who rode into power on the artillery wagons of the Union, under the 
flag of Emancipation. 

The public is often heedlessly unjust. Let a Government have 10,000 
official subordinates in power, of whom 9,900 are honest and true men 
who do their duty faithfully, while barely 100 are robbers and swindlers, 
the public will hear a great deal more about the 100 robbers than about 
the 9,900 true men. The 100 stand out in the public eye— they are 
always doing something which exposes them to the scornful gaze of the 
multitude— while the honest and true men pass along silent and unob- 
served, and nothing is said, very little is thought, of them. All attention 
•is concentrated upon the 100, who are defaulting, and stealing, and forg- 
ing, and running away. 

Well, gentlemen, the thieving carpet- Daggers are a mournful fact ; 
they do exist there, and I have seen them. They are fellows who 



AS TO CORRUPTION, NORTH AND SOUTH. 19 

crawled down South in the track of our armies, generally at a very 
safe distance in the rear ; some of them on sutlers' wagons ; some bear- 
ing cotton permits ; some of them looking sharply to see what might 
turn up ; and they remain there. They at once ingratiated themselves 
with the Blacks, simple, credulous, ignorant men, very glad to welcome 
and to follow any Whites who professed to be the champions of their 
rights. Some of them got elected Senators, others Kepresentatives, 
some Sherifts, some Judges, and so on. And there they stand, right in 
the public eye, stealing and plundering, many of them with both arms 
around negroes, and their hands in their rear pockets, seeing if they 
cannot pick a paltry dollar out of them ; and the public looks at them, 
does not regard the honest Northern men, but calls every " carpet- 
bagger" a thief, which is not the truth by a good deal. But these fel- 
lows — many of them long-faced, and with eyes rolled up, are greatly 
concerned for the education of the Blacks, and for the salvation of their 
souls. [Great laughter.] " Let us pray," they say ; but they spell pray 
with an " e," and, thus spelled, they obey the apostolic injunction to 
" pray without ceasing." 

Fellow -citizens, the time has been, and still is, when it was perilous 
to be known as a Republican or an Abolitionist in the South ; but it 
never called the blush of shame to any man's cheek to be so called^ 
until these thieving carpet-baggers went there — never ! [Applause.] 
They got into the Legislatures ; they went to issuing State bonds ; they 
pretended to use them in aid of railroads and other improvements. 
But the improvements were not made, and the bonds stuck in the 
issuers' pockets. That is the pity of it. 

" Well," some say, " you have just such thieves at the North." 
Yes, we have — too many of them ! [Applause.] But the South was 
already impoverished — was bankrupt — without money, without thrift, 
almost without food ; and these fellows went there robbing and swind- 
ling when there was very little to steal, and taking the last ten-cent shin- 
plaster off of dead men's eyes. They were recognized by the late 
aristocracy not merely as thieves, but as enemies. Says Byron's Greek 
minstrel, 

" A tyrant — but our masters then 
Were still at least our countrymen.' 

Thus we regard the men who annually rob us at Albany, at Tren- 
ton, and at Harrisburg. They do not carry their plunder out of the 
State, when they get any. These fellows do ! The South was not 
merely beaten in the late contest ; she was profoundly astonished by the 
result. Her people have not fairly got over their amazement at their 
defeat; and what they see of us are these thieves, who represent the 
North to their jaundiced vision, and, representing it, they disgrace it. 



20 ME. 

They are tlie greatest obstacle to the triumph and permanent ascendancy 
of Republican principles at the South, and as such I denounce them. 
[Applause.] 

" Well, then, do you justify the Ku-Klux ? " I am asked. Justify 
them in what ? If they should choose to catch a hundred or two of 
these thieves, place them tenderly astride of rails, and bear them quietly 
and peaceably across the Ohio, I should of course condemn the act, as 
I condemn all violence ; but the tears live in a very small onion that 
would water all my sorrow for those. [Laughter and applause.] But 
they do nothing like that ; they don't go for the thieving carpet-baggers ; 
but they skulk around wretched cabins, and drag out inoffensive negroes, 
to lash and torture them, merely for standing up for their rights as 
men. For this, I do execrate the Ku-Klux. I say they are a disgrace 
to Southern chivalry ; and they would be drummed out of the South if 
there were any true chivalry there. 

But it has been reported very widely that at Vicksburg, addressing 
a mainly Southern audience, and trying to awaken in them something of 
the sentiment of nationality and patriotism which burns in a true 
American bosom, I said that I trusted the time would come when we of 
the North would honor Lee and Stonewall Jackson. 1 did not say that. 
What I did say was that I hoped the time would come when Americans 
North, as well as Americans South, would feel a just pride in the 
soldierly achievements and military character of Lee and Stonewall 
Jackson, just as I trusted the late Confederates would learn to feel a 
patriotic pride in the achievements of Grant and Shennan, and Thomas 
and Sheridan. I said that, or something very like it. Possibly, you are 
not willing to go so far as that. Very well, there is no hurry. Take 
your time ; I can wait. Yes, I can wait. 

THE NEW DEPARTURE. 

But, gentlemen, my voice fails, yet I want to say a few words about 
the New Departure. When men are in a bad fix, I reckon they had 
better depart from it ; and I fully justify those Democrats who have 
determined to depart from the foolish old business of running their 
heads against a stone wall. If I were there, I should depart ; and I 
think it well for them to do it ; and, since they do it, I am not inclined 
to criticise the manner too severely, nor to judge them too harshly. I 
have made a rule for some time never to conjure up a bad motive for a 
good action. They are where they ought not to be; they propose to de- 
part, and I think they should. 

Our Ohio friends do not take quite so charitable a view of the New 
Departure as I do. They say there was a particularly rough character 
once, who was noted for violating the Sabbath, among other bad deeds. 
But finally he became converted, *"'got religion," and joined the church. 



AS TO THE NEW DEPARTURE. 21 

All right. One day, a gentleman came along and asked a neighbor of 
his, " Do you see any great change in Nokes since he joined the 
church ? " " O yes, very great ; he used to go out chopping Sunday 
mornings with his ax swung over his shoulder ; now lie carries it under 
his coat." [Laughter.] Gentlemen, I am very glad that the Democratic 
party has taken off its shoulder the ax which it has wielded so many 
years in deadly hostility to the rights of the Colored race. I am glad 
even if it has put it under its coat; but I hope it will think better of it 
and put it back into the wood-house, and meet the Blacks with open 
hands, saying, " We are going to treat each of you just as he shall 
deserve to be treated, no matter what is the color of his skin." I do 
believe they mean this — the most of them. I believe they mean here- 
after to wear their Democracy somewhat more than skin-deep. At any 
rate, I shall urge and encourage them to do so. 

Fellow-citizens : I would not make too much of this New Departure. 
I do not understand these gentlemen even to profess any penitence for 
their past warfare against the Equal Rights of Men. I don't understand 
them even to promise that they will never renew that warfare. I only 
understand them as pledged to this extent : They admit that the three 
Republican amendments to the Federal Constitution are now a part 
of that Constitution, and, that, while they shall remain there, they must be 
obeyed. That I understand to be the extent of the New Departure ; 
and I deem it worth a great deal. So long as they admit that these 
Amendments are in, I shall feel pretty sure that they are not likely to 
get them out. I shall rest content that the rights of all men, being 
citizens of the United States, are safe under the guaranties of the Federal 
Constitution. 

Twenty-five years ago, I stood at the poll of the XlXth ward of this 
city all one rainy, chill November day, peddling ballots for Equal Suf- 
frage. I got many Whigs to take them, but not one Democrat. Again 
in 1860 — not eleven years ago — I again stood at my poll all day, and 
handed out the same kind of vote ; and I do not remember that a single 
Democrat took one. Some Republicans, even, would not take them; 
but no Democrat would, 

I believe in Human Progress. I believe that men are rather wiser 
and better to-day than they were twelve years ago ; and here is proof of 
it. It is not two years since our Democratic State Legislature withdrew 
the consent given by its Republican predecessor to the XVth Amend- 
ment, and, by a party vote, so far as ?Iew Yoik could do it, they tried to 
defeat that amendment. Now, we have a New Departure. Was it not 
high time ? I think it was. 

Fellow-citizens : I am weary, weary, of this sterile strife concerning 
the fundamental principles of republican institutions. I am tired of trying 



22 MR. GREELEY S RECORD. 

to teach Democrats the A, B, Os of Democracy. I rejoice to know that 
they have taken a New Departure ; and I tell you that, when they have once 
taken it it will be a great deal harder to get back to the old ground than 
to go on. Some one says, " Isn't it going to put the Republicans out of 
power f I cannot tell. Immediately, I think not. Mr. Burke well 
says : " Confidence is a plant of slow growth ;" and I think it will take 
some time for the people to realize that the Democrats mean to uphold 
Equal Rights — some time for their own folks to realize it — a great deal 
longer to make any Black man believe that they mean it. 

I don't anticipate any sudden change in the relative strength of parties, 
because of the New Departure. Ultimately, I think, it will strengthen 
the Democrats. " Then," one says, " yoti will go out of power." Yes, 
we shall some time, no doubt. If it were to be my fiite to go out this 
moment, and every year of my life thereafter to be in the minority, pros- 
trate and powerless, I should still thank God, most humbly and heartily, 
that he allowed me to live in an age, and to be a part of the generation 
that witnessed the downfall and extinction of American Slavery. [Pro- 
longed applause.] 

Fellow-citizens : I trust the day is not distant v/herein, putting behind 
us the things that concern the Past, we shall defer to that grand old in- 
junction of the Bible : "Speak to the children of Israel that they go for- 
ward." I am weary of fighting over issues that ought to be dead — that 
logically were dead years ago. When Slavery died, I thought that we 
ought speedily to have ended all that grew out of it by Universal Amnesty 
and Impartial Suffrage. [Applause.] I think so still ; and that, if the 
Democratic party shall concede Impartial Suffrage, the Republican party 
will concede Universal Amnesty ; if not, it will have a very short lease of 
power. So, then, friends, I summon you all. Republicans and Democrats, 
to prepare for the new issues and new struggles that visibly open before 
us. In the times not far distant, I trust, we shall consider questions 
mainly of industrial policy — questions of national advancement — ques- 
tions concerning the best means whereby our different parties may, 
through cooperation, or through rivalry, strive to promote the prosperity, 
the happiness, and the true glory of the American people. To that con- 
test, I invite you. For that contest, I would prepare you. And so, 
trusting that the blood shed in the past will be a sufficient atonement 
for the sins of the past, and that we are entering upon a grand New 
Departure, not for one party only, but for the whole country— a depart- 
ure from strife to harmony, from devastation to construction, from 
famine and desolation to peace and plenty— I bid you, friends and fel- 
low-citizens, an affectionate good-night. [Prolonged cheers and ap- 
plause.] 

THE END. 



NEW-YOEK TRIBUNE 

DURING THE CAMPAIGN. 



The Tribune is not and will never more be a party organ; but it is 
ardently enlisted in the contest now waging for Civil Service Reform and for 
One Presidential Term as essential to that Reform. It accepts the Cincinnati 
Platform as a terse and a forcible exposition of the political right and wrong, 
the needs and hopes of To-Day, and looks hopefully to Universal Amnesty as 
essential to the restoration of a genuine fraternity between North and South, 
and of mutual confidence and good will between White and Black. It be- 
lieves the People are preparing to break the rusty shackles of mere bygone 
partisanship, and it hopes for a result next November which will cheer and 
strengthen the champions of Peace and Good Will. It will issue no cam- 
paign edition, but proffers to all who believe its further diffusion may serve 
the Good Cause its regular editions at the lowest possible prices. 

The virtual surrender by the Democratic party of its hostility to Equal 
Rights regardless of Color has divested our current politics of half their by- 
gone intensity. However parties may henceforth rise or fall, it is clear that 
the fundamental principles which have hitherto honorably distinguished the 
Republicans are henceforth to be regarded as practically accepted by the 
whole country. The right of every man to his own limbs and sinews — the 
equality of all citizens before the law — the inability of a State to enslave any 
portion of its people— the duty of the Union to guarantee to every citizen the 
full enjoyment of his liberty until he forfeits it by crime — such are the broad 
and firm foundations of our National edifice ; and palsied be the hand which 
shall seek to displace them ! Though not yet twenty years old, the Republi- 
can party has completed the noble fabric of Emancipation, and may fairly 
invoke thereon the sternest judgment of Man and the benignant smile of 
God. 

Henceforth, the mission of our Republic is one of Peaceful Progress. To 
protect the weak and the humble from violence and oppression — to extend 
the boundaries and diffuse the blessings of Civilization— to stimulate Ingen- 
uity to the production of new inventions for economizing Labor and thus en- 
larging Production — to draw nearer to each other the producers of Food and 
of Fabrics, of Grains and of Metals, and thus enhance the gains of Industry 
by reducing the cost of transportation and exchanges between farmers and 
artisans— such is the inspiring task to which this Nation now addresses itself, 
and by which it would fain contribute to the progress, enlightenment, and 
happiness of our race. To this great and good work The Tribune con- 
tributes its zealous, persistent efforts. 

Agriculture will continue to be more especially elucidated in its Weekly 
and Semi-Weekly editions, to which some of the ablest and most successful 
tillers of the soil will steadily contribute. No farmer who sells $300 worth of 
produce per annum can afford to do without our Market Reports, or others 
equally lucid and comprehensive. If he should read nothing else but what 
relates to his own calling and its rewards, we believe that no farmer who can 
read at all can afford to do without such a journal as The Tribune. And 
we aspire to make it equally valuable to those engaged in other departments 



LIBRftRY OF CONGRE: 



24 NEW YORK TRIBUNE DURING THE CAM: I I I! 

013 789 552 

of Productive Labor. We spend more and more money on our columns eacl3 

year as our coimtrynaen's generous patronage enables us to do ; and we are 
resolved that om- issues of former years shall be exceeded in varied excellence 
and interest by those of 1872. Friends in every State ! help us to make our 
journal better and better, by sending in your subscriptions and increasing 
your Clubs for the yeai- just before us ! 

Daily Tribune, Mail Subscribers, $10 per annum. 

Semi- Weekly Tribune, Mail Subscribers, |4 per annum. Five copies or 

over, |3 each ; an extra copy will be sent for every club of ten sent for at 

one time. 
During the Presidential Campaign we will receive Six-month Subscrip- 
tions at the same rates. 

TERMS OF THE WEEKLY TRIBUNE. 

TO MAIL SUBSCRIBERS. 

One Copy, one year, 52 issues -fS 

Five Copies, one year, 53 issues 9 

TO ONE ADDRESS, ALL AT ONE POST-OFFICE. 

10 Copies $1 50 each. 

20 Copies 125 each. 

, 50 Copies - 100 each. 

And One Extra Copy to each Club. 

TO NAMES OP SUBSCRIBERS, ALL AT ONE POST-OFFICE. 

10 Copies $1 60 each. 

20 Copies 1 35 each. 

50 Copies 1 10 each. 

And One Extra Copy to each Club. 



THE WEEKLY TRIBUNE. 

U^" During tlw Camjmign Five Copies, or over, to one 
address, 50 cents per copy ; or 2 cents per copy, per weeTc. 



ADVERTISUSfG RATES. 

Daily Tribune, 30c., 40c., 50c., 75c. and $1 per line. 
Semi-Weekly Tribune, 25 and CO cents per line. 
Weekly Tribune, $2, $3 and $5 pc?r line, 

According to position in the paper. 
In making remittances, always procm-e a draft on ITew York, or a Posi- 
Offiee Mmey Order, if possible. Where neither of these can be procured, send 
the money lut always in a registered letter. The registration fee has been 
reduced toff teen cmts, and the present registration system has been found by 
the postal authorities to be nearly an absolute protection against losses by 
mail. All Postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so„ 
Terms, cash in advance. Adthress THE TRIBUNE, New York. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



013 789 552 3 



p6Rnulip6» 



